1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for collecting appliance standby electricity-saving information, and in particular for a system featuring power-saving management, automatic operation, enabling transmission and collection of power-saving information for record and statistics.
2. The Related Arts
With increasing maturity of electronic technology, various electrical appliances, from household to office electrical appliances, such as television set, refrigerator, air conditioner, microwave oven, printer, to higher capacity machines commonly installed in laboratories and factories, such as super computer, CNC, MRI, etc, are much more interwoven into daily lives than ever before. For convenience of re-using these devices, manufacturers have designed and users are now habitually keeping these electrical appliances in a standby condition, where these appliances are not actually in use, and the power supply loops between the electrical appliances and the power sources are not actually cut off. Such a practice allows a minor consumption of electrical power by the electrical appliances.
Although the power consumed by a single electrical appliance in a standby condition is fairly small, the total power being consumed by large numbers of standby electrical appliances can become significant, especially on a country wide or global basis. This is wasteful. This depletion of valuable energy leads to higher expenses for utilities in each and every country and is certainly contrary to the now common moral standard that we ought to strive and achieve energy savings any way possible.
It is heretofore known that some electrical appliances are provided with a power interruption device. The power interruption device is connected between a power terminal of an electrical appliance and a power source and comprises of a specific power extractor, a comparator, a timer, and a switch. The specific power extractor functions to set a first reference voltage, which corresponds to a power threshold. The comparator makes comparison between the first reference voltage to a second reference voltage. When the second reference voltage is less than the first reference voltage, the timer counts time to determine if it exceeds a power interruption time. If the counted time exceeds the power interruption time, then the electrical connection between the power terminal of the electrical appliance and the power source is cut off. This serves to achieve a key function—that when the electrical appliance is not in use, the power consumption for the electrical appliance when in standby mode can be reduced, thereby achieving power savings.
However, in certain instances, electrical appliances may be set up in a concealed location or at an elevated location, for performance or aesthetics reasons. This makes activation of the power interruption device very inconvenient. Therefore, wireless control is adopted in combination with the power interruption device, wherein the power interruption device includes a wireless control gate device. The wireless control gate device receives a wireless control signal and generates a conduction signal or a shutoff signal. Depending on the conduction signal, the switch restores the electrical connection between the power terminal and the power source and the shutoff signal cuts off the electrical connection between the power terminal and the power source. In addition to the efficacy of reducing power consumption of an electrical appliance in a standby condition, this arrangement improves easiness of operating the device due to the wireless control.
Further, to cope with the potential risk of fault determination occurring in a power interruption device in electrical appliances, a device-standby power-saving controller that features detection and storage function is available and is capable of not only correctly determining if the device-standby power-saving function be executed but can also identify a potential circuit overloading condition
The device-standby power-saving controller, after detecting the activation of a start-up switch, controls a circuit switch to close through a control unit and inspects electrical current of a power circuit with a current detection unit, with the electrical current so detected defined as a standby current. In a predetermined period of time, if the electrical appliance is not set in operation, the control unit controls the circuit switch to open. If the electrical appliance is actuated and turned on to be set in an operating condition within the predetermined period of time, then the current detection unit inspects the electrical current through the power circuit with the electrical current so detected as an operation current. The standby current and the operation current are stored in a storage unit, whereby the standby current and the operation current can be used later to determine if to execute the device-standby power-saving function. This arrangement provides users with an intelligent control function.
However, even though the functions of the power interruption device are getting increasingly diversified and the performance thereof increasingly powerful, the number and willingness of people to invest and install such a power interruption device for the purposes of energy saving is negligible. The market is lacking an integrated mechanism that can drive and invoke more of the general public to take simple steps to save energy.